Somerville’s third annual Jazz Fest set for September

Somerville’s third annual Jazz Festival will be held on Sunday, Sept. 11, from 1-6 p.m.
The free outdoor event takes place on the Somerset County Courthouse Green on Main Street in Somerville. This year’s lineup was assembled by Sheila Anderson of WBGO-FM to showcase “young, hip, jazz musicians.”

Headlining the popular festival is one of the leading trombonists of his generation, Wycliffe Gordon, a jazz virtuoso with a great array of tones and sounds. A former member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Gordon has also played with Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Shirley Horn, and Branford Marsalis. As an added bonus for the 2011 Festival, Gordon and his band will provide a fresh take on traditional classics with their special salute to an American icon, “The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong."

Also offering a new slant on American traditions will be jazz singer and guitarist Allan Harris, whose musical roots include rock, blues and Broadway. Harris and his band perform at jazz festivals throughout the world, and he is hailed as one of Tony Bennett’s favorite singers.

The multi-talented Mimi Jones will be featured on the bass and vocals with the Mimi Jones Band at the Festival. Noted for her striking stage presence and sultry voice, she was schooled in jazz traditions by Ron Carter and Milt Hinton, which she now updates with the grooves and world beats of today’s music.

This year’s Jazz Festival features a Petrof grand piano that will flourish in the nimble hands of jazz pianist Helen Sung, who will be performing with her ensemble. With roots in classical piano, Sung’s jazz playing has been described by the Kalamazoo Gazette as “welcoming listeners into her world: a place of passion, adventure and drama, and truckloads of rhythm...taking audiences for a ride they won’t soon forget.”

The Somerville Jazz Festival is free of charge, including parking in downtown Somerville and its municipal lots. Attendees can enjoy foods and beverages available for purchase from Somerville restaurants at the Festival Food Court in sight of the stage. The Festival will take place rain or shine.

The Festival will also feature a diverse group of local artists, displaying and offering their paintings, prints, sculptures, and mixed-media art works for sale. Volunteers from the Somerville-based nonprofit Operation Shoebox New Jersey will collect donations of supplies for personal care packages that will be shipped to U.S. military personnel deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More information about the Somerville Jazz Festival can be found at somervillejazzfestival.com, at FindSomerville.com, or on the Festival’s own Facebook page. The Festival is presented by the Downtown Somerville Alliance (DSA) whose mission is to promote and enhance the economic well-being and growth of Somerville’s Historic Downtown District.

Major support for the Somerville Jazz Festival is provided by Skylands Community Bank. Media sponsorship is provided by Courier News, The Star Ledger, and WBGO 88.3 FM Jazz Radio. Also providing support are Loumarc Signs, Middle Earth, Minuteman Press, Division Street Music, The Pianosmith and Petrof, and Somerset County Freeholders.

Funding has been made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts through the State/County Partnership Local Arts Program administered for Somerset County by the Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Commission.